Box Drive's system extension failed to load
Message:
Box Drive's system extension failed to load. Please make sure it has been enabled in System Preferences > Security & Privacy and then restart your computer.
Followed instructions, still unable to run Box Drive
Platform: MacBook Pro, macOS Big Sur, M1 Chip
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Official comment
We are excited to announce that we have released a Public Beta of Box Drive that is compatible with new Apple devices with M1 chips today. Any Box user can access this without signing the Master Beta Agreement. To find out more information, including the installation and download instructions, please visit our community page.We know that it's been extremely challenging and frustrating for many of you that we didn't have a compatible version of Box Drive on M1 devices previously. We are truly sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused and we sincerely appreciate your patience as we've worked hard to get this general access for users.Please note that this Public Beta is based on Box Drive's existing architecture, which uses kernel extensions. As such, it requires users to enable 'reduced security mode' and requires additional installation steps in order to run Box Drive on M1 devices. Organizations that have MDM configured on their devices can follow these configuration steps to the ease installation steps for their users. Later this year, we are planning to add support for a new version of Box Drive that will be built using Apple's File Provider Extension (FPE) APIs. This new architecture provides a modern implementation that exists in user space with no kernel extensions, so users will not have to enable 'reduced security mode'. It will also significantly streamline the install experience for Box Drive on M1 devices.Thank you again for all your patience. We truly appreciate it.Best,RenaComment actions -
Some perspective from users:
- 150 days since Apple released a developer preview of Big Sur at WWDC
- 150 days since Apple offered a Developer Mac with Apple Silicon for development and testing
- 105 days since Apple released a public beta of Big Sur
- 7 days since Apple released Big Sur to all users
Box Drive still does not function on Big Sur properly to date.
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I have an intel Mac and had the same issue. I've managed to get Box Drive working by doing the following:
From what i can tell, the installer is trying to load the kext from/Library/Filesystems/box.fs/Contents/Extensions/11.0/osxfuse.kext. When it does that the Big Sur will throw an error (see attachment).
To fix this i copied the box.fs folder to/Library/Extensionsand rankextload /Library/Extensions/box.fs/Contents/Extensions/11.0/osxfuse.kext.
This brings up a dialog box asking you to approve the extension in System Preferences. Once approved, you'll be asked to reboot the machine.Box Drive works fine after that. From time to time you still get the 'box dialog box', but i'm guessing that's because app is hardcoded to look for a specific path. Would be interested to know if the above works for you as well.
I'd be interested to know if the a similar approach would work on M1 (you'll probably need rosetta installed as well). Hope this helps.
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So after some work on trying to find a fix I have found 2 possible way forward until Box issues a Apple Universal update:
1. The old app 'Box Sync' works perfectly fine on the M1 Mac (if you use this make sure to sync them from online)
or
2. Cloud Mounter is a paid app from the Mac App Store that works really well. Just log in with your box account and everything comes over. $13.99 for 3 months.
Using both currently and they both work great.
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It's nice to finally get an official statement. I think it is also fair to point out that it was announced almost a year ago that kernel extensions would be deprecated in Big Sur. Even though Apple walked this back the development path should have been clear. It's my understanding that Apple uses box internally (at least that was one of the ways it was sold to me). It's tough to be told that box is the Apple friendly dev and then be told to use the web interface for three months while they sort out the technical issues of basing their mac integration on an open source library that box does not appear to be contributing to.
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Same over here for the M1.
Box folks... come on. We need you to fix this problem, not tomorrow, not a week from now, not in Q2. We needed it yesterday. I won't tell you how to do the specifics of your job, you know it better than most of us and the difficulties that you face. I won't downplay those hardships because I am frustrated and recognize that but I will say that what has been presented thus far has been inadequate to the needs and the final product is found wanting. Do what you have to do behind the scenes to rectify this problem, present solutions and please do so quickly. We rely on you and your product to be stable, that reliability is not there right now and its a poor showing of a good product.
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Age of thread: 5 Months
Age of last moderator update from Box: 1 Month
Latest Update from Box (yesterday):
"Later this year, Box will release a version of Box Drive that no longer requires kernel extensions, therefore no longer requiring Reduced Security mode to run. In the interim, customers who would like to use Box Drive will need to enable Reduced Security mode in order to use the product."
-- https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500004479962-Box-Drive-support-on-devices-with-M1-chips
5 Months we have been airing our frustrations...
10 Months since Apple made DTK's available to developers: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/
And now we are met with a delivery date of "later this year"? Are your roadmaps written in crayon too?
Everyone else seems to have figured out how to AT LEAST make their app work via Rosetta with many offering native M1 support for some time now on Big Sur no less...
What's the hold up? Is this upgrade too hard? Did Content Cloud seem like a better idea than supporting existing users? Or do you guys get last pick of the developers on the market?
This is beyond ridiculous at this point.
Reduced security mode as a workaround...I mean, come on...
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I had the same issue. After you change the security settings and download the latest beta, you need to follow Benny's steps (pasted here). As soon as I did this Box worked perfectly. The guidance from Box was very confusing and their customer support was not remotely helpful. Thank goodness for this thread.
- Installed the latest beta from here.
- Run the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.box.desktop MacMode fpe (Important note: This command needs to be run as the current user, not as sudo) - Restarted Box Drive
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@Curtis Frazier's comment is the best;
I am now adding another 30 days to each;
- 180 days since Apple released a developer preview of Big Sur at WWDC
- 180 days since Apple offered a Developer Mac with Apple Silicon for development and testing [this is the main problem]
- 135 days since Apple released a public beta of Big Sur
- 37 days [this is actually closer to 60] since Apple released Big Sur to all users
Box Drive still does not function. How many engineers you need?
@Brent, This is just rubbish, not only I am frustrated but also I am losing my confidence in your service. We moved from Dropbox to Box, that was a mistake! As a director of a deep-tech company now I am disconnected to my staff thanks to your and your organisation's incompetence!
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These steps worked for me. I did not have Box Drive on the machine beforehand (I had been using Box Sync on my M1 until now).
- Installed the latest beta from here.
- Run the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.box.desktop MacMode fpe (Important note: This command needs to be run as the current user, not as sudo) - Restarted Box Drive
Used for a few hours so far and no issues whatsoever.
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